It has been commonplace for many years to provide electric appliances, such as coffeemakers and to the like, with timers which activate the appliance at a specified hour. For example, coffeemakers are provided with clockwork timers which turn the coffeemaker on at a specified hour, the "set-time" hereinafter, such that when the user of the appliance awakes, the coffee is ready. As indicated, such timers are known which are clockwork drive, that is, driven by a continually rotating electric motor through a gear train; digital timers are also known for this purpose. The present invention relates to clockwork driven appliance timers.
More recently there have been developed clockwork timers having the additional capability of shutting the appliance off a specified period after the set-time. Such a timer is shown in Wingler et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,695,683. In this way, for example, the danger of fire which might be caused by the user of the appliance forgetting to turn the power off is substantially eliminated. However, the Wingler et al. timer is unduly complex to manufacture.
Other types of clockwork timers generally pertinent to the subject matter of this invention include those employed in clock radios. As is well known, clock radios can typically be operated in a "drowse" mode whereby the user turns the radio on when he retires. In this mode, the clock radio plays for a predetermined period of time and shuts itself off. Clock radios of this general type employing clockwork timers are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,387,452 to Ring et al. and others.
Clock radios operated in the drowse mode as thus defined can be distinguished from automatic shut-off appliance timers as described above in that such clock radios are not automatically activated at a specified time. Instead they are activated by the user.